Ben Lambert
WINSTED — Town residents will have the chance to weigh in on the potential renovation of the Mary P. Hinsdale Elementary School in the coming weeks, as a special meeting and referendum have been scheduled.
According to a release issued Wednesday, the Board of Selectmen will present a resolution to appropriate $17,425,000 for the renovation of the building, at a Sept. 3 town meeting to be held in the P. Francis Hicks Room in Town Hall at 7 p.m.
The board approved the resolution Monday, according to the release.
Town residents will have the chance to vote on the potential expenditure at a referendum from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sept. 7 at the Isabelle M. Pearson School on Wetmore Avenue.
The Planning & Zoning Commission is set to review the project Sept. 12.
Aspects of the planned construction effort include: removing an original portion of the building to eliminate the culvert that currently runs under the school; adding 7,700 square feet of new classroom space; replacing ceilings and floors in poor condition; adding a new play area for students; and replacing sidewalks, paving and curbing outside the building.
Hinsdale was closed in 2016 during the tenure of state Receiver Robert Travaglini.
Officials have moved toward re-opening the building instead of renovating Batcheller Elementary School, with Superintendent Melony Brady-Shanley noting in April that Hinsdale is more structurally sound and in a preferable location.
If construction proceeds as anticipated, students are expected to move into the fresh Hinsdale School in fall 2021.
The ownership of the land surrounding Hinsdale School is in question, which Brady-Shanley said in April could require “serious reworking of the site plan.”
The W.L. Gilbert Trust sued the town in April, claiming the decision to close the school and discontinue use of the land as a playground and athletic fields triggered reversion clauses in two deeds under which it transfered ownership of the land to the community.
The town has denied the claim, indicating that it never discontinued use of the property, according to judicial records.
According to a special defense filed by Town Attorney Kevin Nelligan in May, the town is seeking monetary damages from the W.L. Gilbert Trust in the suit.
Nelligan argues in the defense that the suit has “no factual basis” and is an improper use of the legal process, brought to gain leverage during ongoing contractural negotiations and damage the town financially when it seeks money to renovate the Hinsdale building.
The long-running Route 6 construction project leaves business owners a choice...adapt or suffer
BRIAN M. JOHNSON
Project Engineer Juan Ruiz, with the Connecticut Department of Transportation has stated that the overall goal of the project is to widen the road, add an extra lane and make safety improvements. Traffic lights are also being upgraded and coordinated to improve traffic flow.
When Ruiz was contacted last September, he said that the project should be wrapping up by August or September of this year. Kevin Nursick, spokesman from the Department of Transportation, confirmed that the project was still on track for completion in September. The project was originally intended to have been completed last November, but relocation of shallow utilities resulted in some delays.
“ Back in the day, no one worried about how deep they were going and took the path of least resistance, and 20 or 30 years later, we are paying the price,” said Ruiz. “These utilities are buried too shallow to protect them from rust and they need to go deeper.”
Nursick confirmed that all of the utilities that were being relocated have now been relocated.
“ The work that still remains is reconstruction of Route 6 west of Burger King, then the first lift of paving in the same section,” he said. “This will be followed by the final paving of the whole project and landscaping, which includes top soil, turf establishment and plantings.”
Some businesses in the middle of this work have had no choice but to adapt to the situation, even if their businesses are taking hits.
Jason Humphries, owner and president of Pet Supplies Plus said that his store has taken a 40% hit in profits since the work began.
“ Between our five stores, we can take the hit, but I would imagine that it hurts smaller businesses dramatically,” he said. “This is happening on top of taxes going up and the minimum wage increase. When it’s done, it will be great, it will be terrific, but until we get there it is rough. It has been going on for so long, I’ve never seen anything like it.”
At 985 Farmington Ave., Matt Dumont of Roland Dumont Agency finds himself in the heart of the work.
“ It has been an inconvenience to our business,” he said. “It has made things difficult for our agents to negotiate the roads and get back from lunch in a timely manner. It has also made things difficult for clients who are coming out of town to get to our meetings. Fortunately, we do have a back entrance to our parking lot on Boardman Street, which we are directing our clients to. But, it is what it is. In the long run it will be beneficial, but the sooner it gets done the better. We are getting used to it; it’s a necessary evil.”
One of the owners of Lee Po Chinese Restaurant, Sue Chan, isn’t happy that her customers were having trouble getting into her business.
“ It was hurting our business,” she said.
Chan also said that she was pleased that the construction has moved away from her restaurant now.
The recently moved Dee’s Cleaners & Laundromat, has seen little congestion but nothing they seem to be worried about.
“ Things can get a little congested at times, but it’s not a big problem. It’s still easy for our customers to get in and out. We know that they’re working on it,” said owner Dee Dee Mandino. “We’re happy with our move.”
Mayor Ellen Zoppo-Sassu understands that the traffic and business disruption has been hard. She said that she has sent the city’s public works staff to the state project meetings so that state officials are fully armed with any mapping information or technical advice that the city can provide.
“ They have also been working 24 hours on certain days to hopefully get this finished on time or ahead of schedule,” she said. “We have also communicated to them that we are about to have hundreds and thousands of people coming to Bristol for softball and Little League games on Mix Street, which is just off of Route 6. We asked them to mitigate disruptions to visitors to Bristol and to existing residents from people cutting through neighborhoods. They have agreed to do that.”
The planning for the project took into consideration input from an online community survey conducted in 2016.
Only 1% of those who filled out the survey said they felt the corridor was fine as is. 70% said there should be additional turning lanes and half said travel lanes should be added. 35% said improvements to sidewalks and crosswalks were needed in some areas.
The project was awarded to Empire Paving in fall 2016, at a cost of $12.87 million. 80% of the project cost is covered by federal funding and the rest is matched by municipalities.
Almost two decades into the 21st century, Connecticut still struggles with how it will update transportation options and how it will pay for them. The public appetite for faster, affordable, more convenient, cleaner and greener transportation choices is stronger than ever, as young people rethink prevailing assumptions about where to live and older ones move in from car-dependent suburbs to denser neighborhoods.
The state has much catching up to do. Financing new infrastructure is the billion-dollar question. That light glimmering at the end of the road and rail tunnels may be answers.
The first step is to be able to describe the demand and the technology of the next 50 years. They are not the same as those that spurred the massive highway system of the mid-20th century. While there's no escaping the need to repair aging infrastructure that still carries the load, that load must be shared in ways that make better economic and environmental sense. For a long time it has been clear that the conversation is not just about how to fix Interstate 95.
Enthusiasm was high for restoring commercial flights to Groton-New London Airport at a transportation forum sponsored July 24 by the Chamber of Commerce of Eastern Connecticut. Though there are obstacles, planners have identified the need: mid-range interstate air access to other cities without a 50- or 100-mile trip to the airport. When you know what's needed, you can go after it.
Defining the future local need for ground transportation is in an earlier stage. The Southeastern Connecticut Council of Governments and the state Office of Military Affairs have taken the lead on a Department of Defense-funded Joint Land Use Study, due in early fall. Consultants have been told to focus on how sailors, Electric Boat shipyard workers and engineers and designers will get to their jobs in Groton and New London, and where they will be commuting from as the Navy orders construction of more submarines at a faster clip.
The forecast is for 300,000 people to be living in the region in 2040, compared to about 269,000 now. Workers opting for the suburban and rural lifestyles so beloved in eastern Connecticut will need a place to park their pickups and SUVs, but perhaps not in urban lots. Car- and van-pools or buses could fill up with people on the same shifts and head in. Sidewalks and bike lanes will be in greater demand for the last leg of the route.
This is where New London County must consider its specific transit options, which may differ from new solutions in the western and central parts of the state. The deputy commissioner of the Department of Economic and Community Development told The Connecticut Mirror that the single most important measure for revitalization of the state's cities is transit-oriented development — such as the blossoming success stories of New Britain, Stamford, Windsor and other urban centers. Development of long-vacant downtown buildings into living places is bringing those cities back from the near-dead. The stimulus has been the CT Fastrak project of the Malloy administration — heavily doubted at its start — to create speedy bus and rail commutes into Hartford, where the jobs are.
While the exact formulas may not match eastern Connecticut, transit-oriented development should not be off the table. It serves as a model for solving multiple economic problems with a coordinated system. Windsor commuters are getting to Hartford by rail; what's to say workers could not come to New London from New Haven or from points east and take a brief bus ride — or a cross-river ferry — to an EB campus?
How to pay for new transportation systems has been the hangup all along, and with the stalemate on the governor's preferred method of highway tolls, it may seem no closer. There are other options, such as public-private partnerships that must be explored. But whatever the combination of funding sources – and we predict there will be tolls later, if not now – the goal should be systems that eventually give back more to the economy than they take out. Get people to their jobs and they will pay the rent, patronize local business, shore up municipal and state tax revenues and give Connecticut back healthy cities.
Northern Pass dead-end hits Eversource profits
Matt Pilon
tility parent Eversource reported a sharp decrease in its second-quarter profits, thanks to its recent decision to abandon a major transmission project it had long pursued in New Hampshire.
The company, which is dually headquartered in Hartford and Boston, reported net income of $31.5 million, or 10 cents per diluted share, for the three months ended June 30, down from $242.8 million, or 76 cents, in the year-ago quarter.
The culprit was an after-tax impairment charge of $204.4 million related to Northern Pass, a proposed 192-mile transmission line to bring hydropower from Canada to the region. Eversource had pursued the project for years, investing approximately $318 million.
The New Hampshire Supreme Court last month denied Eversource’s appeal related to a previous project denial by the New Hampshire Site Evaluation Committee.
Eversource’s operating revenue was up slightly in the recent quarter, from $1.85 billion to $1.88 billion.